Women's Swimming & Diving

Engineers Break Two Records on Day One of Winter Invite

Senior Christy Rogers

Dec 06, 2013

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - MIT women's swimming and diving wrapped up the first day of the two-day, three-session MIT Winter Invitational in first place with 372.5 points, leaving a sizeable gap between it and Harvard with 250.5 points. Tech earned four NCAA B cuts, and broke one school record and one pool record, taking first place in three different events.

Tech started the meet off the right way by touching in first place in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:33.95. The A relay, which was composed of sophomore Lena Yang (East Stroudsburg, Pa.), freshman Veronika Jedryka (Arlington Heights, Ill.), junior Michelle Cunningham (Wayland, Mass.) and senior Christy Rogers (Bend, Ore.), not only broke the MIT record and easily earned the NCAA B cut, but also beat their time of 1:34.15 that earned them a fifth place finish at the 2013 national championships. MIT's B relay came in second in 1:36.83 and the C relay was fourth with a 1:39.47.

In the first individual event, the 500-yard freestyle, junior Emmie Ryan (Avon, Ind.) was fourth with her time of 5:08.63, improving from her seed time by over eight seconds. Swimming in an outside lane of the second fastest heat of the 200-yard Individual Medley, sophomore Kristen Finney (Lake Orion, Mich.) came in first in 2:09.53. Freshman Emily Tsang (Mountain Lakes, N.J.), also from an outside lane, touched in second place with a 2:09.97. On the 1-meter diving board, senior Jessica Wass (Bismarck, N.D.) was 10th with a score of 213.65.

As always, the Engineers swam well in the 50-yard freestyle, taking the top four spots. Rogers and Jedryka tied for first place with their times of 23.74, easily earning the B cut, while Yang and fellow sophomore Sarah Osmulski (Rumson, N.J.) were third and fourth with a 24.22 and 25.39.

To end the first day, the 400-yard medley A relay came in first with a 3:48.88, getting the B cut by almost four full seconds. The relay, which was made up of Rogers, Finney, Osmulski and Jedryka, broke the pool record from 2011-12 by exactly two seconds and the school record of 3:49.23 from nationals this past season. The B relay came in third behind Harvard's A relay, touching in 3:56.51.

Tech returns to the pool early tomorrow morning for the second session of the meet which is due to start at 10:00 a.m. The third and final session of the meet will be swum at 5:30 tomorrow night.